What are Keywords and why do you need to learn about Keywords

Awarded at Toronto "Ultra Advanced SEO Symposium" Nov. 2005.

What are Keywords and why do you need to learn about Keywords?

Imagine you were a search engine called Google. How would you know if a particular web site was relevant to any particular subject?

Think about this for a moment. One way would be to look for a certain word or phrase called a keyword or keyword phrase AND then assess the importance of that single keyword relative to any other word on the web page and this is exactly what Google does, in the blink of an eye.

When we talk about Google we could also be talking, of course, about most other search engines.

Every single keyword phrase can be assumed to represent a market niche. If someone is searching using phrases then that is the market they are interested in and within this niche they hope to find (and you hope they buy) the product they are looking for.

A keyword is not necessarily a single word when used. In fact a single word keyword finds little practical use on the Internet today. Take the word fountain and do a Google search.

Chances are you will not find what you want. For example did you mean?

Water fountain ?

Drinking fountain?

Garden fountain?

Classical fountain?

Roman fountain?

Fountain pen?

Fountain as a keyword is too broad and fails to define a worthwhile market niche.

What is the market niche aimed for?

If you really meant you wanted information on garden fountains (this is a specific market niche but still very broad and frankly not specific enough these days) then a better search would have been to use the complete phrase garden fountain. OK if you are involved in selling water gardening products which market niche do you want to operate in? Try this very short list just to get your mind ticking over:

garden pond supplies

garden pond pumps

garden pond liners

garden pond design

garden pond filters

garden pond fish pond

Do you see the point we are making here? On the Internet, each of these represents a very small highly targeted MARKET. You need to know which of these is being searched for more than any of the others, and you need to know how much competition you have for each of these focused MARKETS. Some may be huge and some may be small.